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Overpaid NZ teachers to be referred to debt collectors after payroll bungle

Tying up the final loose ends of Novopay disaster.

The New Zealand government has restarted efforts to recoup the remaining NZ$1.8 million (A$1.65 million) mistakenly paid to teachers and school staff as a result of the failed Novopay payroll system implementation.

It today said it would send debt collectors after the 1960 current employees and former employees still yet to repay money that was incorrectly deposited into their accounts.

The NZ$1.8 million it is chasing makes up just under 20 percent of the NZ$22.7 million that was overpaid by the faulty Novopay system in circumstances that bear a striking similarity to Australia's own Queensland Health payroll saga.

The NZ$57 million system went live in September 2012 with the intention of modernising the automated payment of wages for the country's 90,000 teachers and school staff, but was plagued by errors.

A subsequent investigation found the project fell victim to optimism bias, mismanagement and an overly cosy relationship between the government and Aussie systems integrator Talent2.

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